The green paper proposed giving courts greater discretion in their use of community sentences so that they could better tailor sentences to the individual offender. The demonstration projects operated for 1 year starting in April 1997. Local steering groups determined the changes to introduce. Among changes common to both areas were giving sentencers more detailed information about the content of community penalties and giving sentencers an opportunity to be more specific about what they would like pre-sentence reports to cover. Data sources for the study included interviews and questionnaire surveys of magistrates and probation staff, court and probation records on nearly 9,000 cases, observations of court proceedings and local steering group meetings, and project records. Most sentencers regarded the projects as successful. In addition, a majority of the probation officers thought that the projects had improved their understanding of what sentencers wanted to know about offenders and the sorts of sentences they were considering. However, the extent to which the demonstration projects affected sentencing practice was limited. Overall, the projects demonstrated that better communication and working more closely together improved relations between the probation service and sentencers and that both sides welcomed the improved relations. Figures